Seaga, Edward Philip George (1930– )

US-born Jamaican centre-right politician, prime minister 1980–89. Leader of the Jamaican Labour Party (JLP) and the opposition from 1974, he defeated Michael Manley's People's National Party (PNP) in 1980. Abandoning his predecessors' socialist and non-aligned stance, he promoted free-enterprise, severed diplomatic ties with communist Cuba in 1981, and developed close US links. In 1983 Seaga's JLP won all 60 seats in the House of Representatives, but lost power to the PNP, led by a more moderate Manley, in 1989; the JLP was defeated again in 1993 and 1997.

Seaga was first elected to the House of Representatives in 1962 and was minister of welfare and development in the 1962–67 government of William Bustamante, and finance minister 1967–72 under Hugh Shearer, before becoming leader of the JLP, and the opposition, in 1974.

Born in Boston, Massachusetts, to Jamaican parents of Lebanese descent, Seaga went to school in Kingston, Jamaica, but later studied at Harvard University in the USA. He began his career as a university lecturer in Jamaica, before joining the JLP.